kabbalah center and Bnei Baruch
Date: April 27, 2007 03:29PM
Hello Skip,
You ask me to share my experience, and this, again is such a general request. Literally, I could write an entire book about it. Also, personally, I have a problem with reading long posts, and on the other hand, I myself have a tendency to get carried away when writing. So...
I will use the moderator's experience, and will use his list of "red lights" one by one. If my comment to the first two seems interesting or helpful to you, then you could ask me more specific questions. One note though: I was impressed with how little is known, apparently regarding Bnei Baruch.
(it will now take you "only" an half hour to read...)
[b:8db9897c45]Absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability.[/b:8db9897c45]
Bnei Baruch means: Sons of Baruch, a reference to Rav Baruch Shalom Ashlag, a very highly regarded Orthodox Jewish Rabbi that passed away 15 years ago. It is very important to understand that Orthodox Judaism is a closed society that likes and encourages privacy and discretion regarding their way of life. For example: Rabbi Baruch was the head of the Ashlag movement for 40 years and he never spread Kabbalah. One of the reasons being: according to Jewish costums, one should not teach Kabbalah to non Orthodox Jews or non Jews; neither to men who are not married, and definetly not to women. So you can only teach it to Orthodox Jewish married men. (Note: please do not take my words out of context, I am trying to be very precise throughout. For example: It is permitted for women to study Kabbalah, I did not write that is forbidden.) Also, many sectors within the Orthodox community abide to another costum that states that only men elder than 40 who have enough knowledge of Jewish law can study. That being said, who are you going to spread it to?
How is this related to "Absolute authoritarianism" you may ask? According to Orthodox Judaism, the pupil should relate to his Rabbi, or mentor on a relationship of complete trust, which we could translate to absolute aothritarianism. So as to avoid the obvious problems that arouse from this, the Jewish Orthodox society built a system of "certifications", if you will, aiming at, among others, certifying that Rabbis do not use the power they have on their communities so as to take advantage of this. (This is very roughly similar to Kosher food certification).
Now, what Laitman did was take with him the concept of "complete trust", which as we said can become "absolute authoritarianism" real fast, and then distanced himself of the Orthodox community, thus avoiding the certification process.
Since no one controls him, he chooses to teach only that part of the text that explains to what extent the pupil should abide to the Rabbi. (completely). You will find in Orthodox Jewish literature endless material as to this concept.
He omits completely the part of the text that explains to the pupil how to be aware of the danger envolved in this procedure, and the explanation of how to avoid this potential danger. You will find endless material about this as well in Orthodox Jewish literature, but non in the Bnei Baruch sites or books.
I hope this basically covers that 1st point.
2nd point:
"No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry"
What I just explained is true here exactly in the same whey:
BB rely on Orthodox Jewish law or costums. According to it, one should avoid criticism and judge all fellow people positively. One should look only at the positive aspects of those around him and use criticism upon himself.
So, you would ask, how does a society survive without criticism?
Obviously, those same laws and costums state you should criticize and thoroughly admonish those around you, etc.
How is this not a contradiction? Well, should a lawyer ctiticize a judge in the middle of a trial? Of course he shouldn't! Of course he should! You will find law texts explaining both this situations. The problem is, BB will only allow its students access to the material that will discourage criticism.
Yet, I will provide you with some historical data as well:
Until approximately 4 and a half years ago the Bnei Baruch Hebrew forum, as well as all other Bnei baruch forums, were completely open and uncensored. This was until a rival Kabbalistic cult attacked the forum with a system of endless entries questioning their methods, showing their contradictions and lack of knowledge (Bnei Baruch do not teach kabbalah at all. Nor does the KC. This is a misconception. They only use Kabbalah texts as a means to transmit their "beliefs" so as to achieve their real goals).
The final result: the Hebrew forum, a huge forum of many tens of thousands of entries, was shut down and never reopened. All forums in the mainstream languages (English BB, French BB, etc.) were reajusted to a model of complete censorship, much like the one used here, were the moderator decides what post to accept or not, and will ban, or even technically block unwanted visitors. At times, the forums are shut down and reopened after being "cleaned" from unwanted posts.
The rules of the forum were changed and reajusted, not permitting forum members to raise questions that do not directly relate to the information inside the site (this perfectly fits what I explained about omitting information). Since their translations are misleading, omitting parts of the text or changing the order of others, that really leaves people with a very limitted space to maneuver. (Note: Just for the sake of curiosity. Baal Hasulam, the author of most of the books spread by BB and KC strictly stated that he his books not be translated. Also, after his death (some 55 years ago) there was a legal battle for publishing rights of his books, and since then those rights belong to a certain Orthodox Jewish family. Neither BB nor KC ever requested permition to use any of the material published, sold, distributed and downloaded by them).
Also: it is strictly forbidden it the BB forums to criticize BB in any way. If you do that, you will be banned from the forum. Obviously it is forbidden to criticize Mr. Laitman, since he is the leader to whom all pupils should show reverence and complete trust.
I could go on with many examples, but this is already such a long post. I hope it was helpful.
(by the way: the Israel site that posted the story about BB belongs to the most distinguished anti-cult association in Israel. This association is very serious and does not post information without complete certification as to the veracity of the facts, using as a guideline international journalistic laws. Let alone the fact they have people constantly infiltrating into BB.)